EXTRAS

Rotten Tomatoes® Score

TOMATOMETER®

52%

Critics Consensus: Unlike its bestselling source material, Diary of a Wimpy Kid fails to place a likable protagonist at the center of its middle-school humor -- and its underlying message is drowned out as a result.

Common Sense Media

age 9+

Common Sense Says

Adorable comedy about middle-school anxieties...and farts.

What Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Diary of a Wimpy Kid is an adaptation of Jeff Kinney's best-selling series full of tween-friendly jokes and mischief. There are no full-blown swear words, but the dialogue includes a lot of insults like "moron," "idiot," "tool," "stupid" and the like, as well as the standard substitute for stronger words, "freakin'." Parents sensitive to scatological humor, beware! There are several jokes about boogers and farts, a few shots featuring kids on toilets (the middle-school boysroom has no doors on its stalls), and in one scene, the protagonist accidentally pees on his brother. While there's no frightening violence, there is a running theme about three older bullies who menace the main characters, and there's a girl who beats up a boy in front of the entire school. A rebellious seeming teen brother wears eyeliner, is in a garage band, and is caught with a naughty magazine (the cover only shows a woman in a bikini).